Painting is a key step in most manufacturing processes. It is common to use bulk supply stations which deliver different colors of paint in separate supply and return networks. A number of paint supply stations are then located downstream of the paint supply network and are equipped with a supply node and a return node for each color. A generic paint drop line is usually provided to join any one of the nodes to a paint gun. A typical paint drop line may be twenty feet long to provide sufficient reach from the nodes to the workpiece. This means that the paint drop line and the gun must be cleaned between paint colors, involving excessive amounts of cleaning solvents and time.
It would be desirable to provide a novel approach to alleviating this problem.